Sherpa has released a completely free-to-use GCSE revision planner tool to help students plan their sessions and track their progress in each topic. Click here to create your customised plan today!
A revision timetable is an essential tool for any student. They are great tools to reduce anxiety and stress about upcoming exams, optimise focus and manage your time more efficiently.
In theory, laying out an exact plan of how you are going to cover all the topics needed before exams is a surefire way to release some nerves and get a grasp of the challenge ahead. The problem is when it comes to executing the revision plan!
Everything looks better on paper than in reality - so it was a mistake I made once too often to think if I could draw out a schedule to cover a day's revision for each subject and pretend that I would stick to it and reach my goals. Oh how wrong I was…and by that point, it was too late to do anything but panic.
So what are the options? What sees the best results? I’m going to explore the traditional revision timetable and its issues and introduce a more dynamic alternative that I think we should all be suggesting to friends, students and children alike.
This is your traditional revision timetable that consists of a calendar-like grid with each day split into blocks of time. Sometimes hour-by-hour, sometimes morning afternoon and evening or it was just one subject per day and the rest was up to you!
One thing they all had in common, at least in my day, was that they wasted a lot of time (and paper) as you tried and failed to work out what subject or topic goes where - and how many times you should repeat that subject before the exam date. Of course, a priority was to ensure it was done in technicolour!
Although the technology of making them may have evolved, there are several things wrong with them that technology could never solve. It’s why I only saw the best of the best and most organised students make use of them - and who knows to what effect.
Here’s why I think they are fundamentally flawed:
With that said - I think it’s time we all admit that a revision timetable that functions more like a class calendar is simply outdated at best - but if it has been working for you and serves you well, by all means, keep it up! There is not much need to rock a boat that floats.
For everyone else who's always struggled to make a traditional timetable stick let me introduce its younger, top-of-the-class, Oxford graduate cousin: the reflective timetable!
A reflective timetable is a planning tool often used by students to help them stay on track with studying and meeting deadlines. Unlike a traditional timetable that schedules future activities, a reflective timetable involves tracking what has already been completed.
It’s called reflective because it focuses on looking back or reflecting on past actions like homework, past papers or textbook exercises to guide future decisions on what to prioritise. That way you can keep things flexible and prioritise topics and subjects that need more attention.
This can be a useful tool for students who may struggle with sticking to a planned timetable that they have to work out before they even start revising and would benefit from a more flexible, topic-centred approach to time management.
In essence - a reflective timetable is not too dissimilar to a traditional prospective timetable. In place of dates down the main column, we replace them with subject topics.
Rather than putting a topic in each time block like a traditional calendar-style timetable, you just add the dates you revised a certain topic to the corresponding row and colour code it to represent how comfortable you feel with that topic.
It’s important to reflect on this honestly, asking yourself: If the exam was tomorrow how would I feel about a question that came up on this topic? For that reason - it’s important to only make these progress reports in exam conditions. For example, when you have tested yourself in a closed book exercise, used flash cards or tried past paper questions without needing help.
You can create your own colour code with up to 5 levels, but we recommend keeping it simple with a traffic light system:
Red = Really Struggling - Only getting the odd question right.
Orange = OK - Still don’t remember a lot of content and losing marks.
Green = Good to go - I’m getting close to full marks in every question.
Using the dates and confidence levels is what makes this method so effective. You can decide what to revise based on whether a topic hasn’t been revisited for a week or so, or if you can see that a topic is still red - then you should prioritise that until it is at least orange.
There are several reasons this new method is proving to get results for those who know about it:
Good News! Sherpa has recently launched a free online revision planner tool for students that has preloaded all the GCSE topics. Click here to give it a try!
All you need to do to prepare your revision timetable using our tool is choose your subjects and exam boards. If your subjects have elective modules (basically optional topics to study like a choice of books in English Literature) you can select which ones you are doing in school but you can always edit this later.
Tip: Ask your online tutor or teacher for a list of your studied topics, or better yet have them help you fill it out!
Once complete, it’s super easy to use it to track revision of any kind, which gives students the confidence that they are making progress.
Here are some quick links to relevant core subject tutors for extra support:
Our custom-made revision planner was only initially made for GCSE students, but we can add other levels of study!
Let us know through the survey linked below what you would use this tool for and we will add your subjects and levels 👉 Request a new Revision Planner feature!
In the meantime, here is how to create your very own reflective revision timetable using a spreadsheet (on Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, or Apple Numbers apps).
Click the image below to see a template we made so you can 'Make a copy' and customise it yourself:
One of the main benefits you will find is having a very clear layout of the task at hand that you can refer back to regularly. I found it quite motivating as I ended up carving out small increments of time to revise whenever I could, just to get the satisfaction of checking off another revision session.
It doesn’t help anyone to glance over topics thinking “I know that!”, to then get to revision much later on and realise there is a lot more to cover than you scheduled for in your head. I’ve been there - exam panic sets in and the subsequent feelings of dread and avoidant behaviour - something to be prevented at all costs!
This method gently introduces accountability to the revision planning process without making you do mental gymnastics to create a traditional plan weeks or months ahead in the future. All you need - is a list of your topics, a table and a will to succeed to get started.
For that reason - I recommend setting it up as soon as possible in the Autumn term once you know all the subjects and topics you are studying. It’s daunting to see the volume of knowledge teens are expected to absorb every school year, but productivity tools like this can turn any average student into a superstar in the exam hall. I wish you the very best of luck!
Sherpa has hundreds of qualified and experienced UK tutors who are ready to help you achieve your goals. Search through our tutors and arrange a free 20 minute introduction through our industry-leading online classroom.
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